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ADVISORY
• Ascentis Independent Advisors, a Texas-based platform for independent advisors and part of Ascentis Holdings, has announced that Strada Wealth Advisors, with locations in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Salt Lake City, has selected AIA as its new RIA (Registered Investment Adviser) partner. Strada Wealth Advisors is led by founders James Matt and Michael Otterson. Ascentis Holdings was recently launched as a unified wealth management and asset management platform. It is composed of three businesses: Ascentis Wealth Management, Ascentis Asset Management and AIA, which includes the fee-based advisory business and related advisor affiliations previously operating as part of Golden State Equity Partners. As part of the action, Strada Wealth Advisors will gain access to the broader Ascentis Holdings platform.
ASSOCIATIONS
• The Mountain West Chamber of Commerce has named new members to its board of directors. New members and their businesses are Tiffany Isbel (board chairperson), The Sport Connection; Gabe Garcia (past board chair), Utah Community Credit Union; Heidi Patzold (treasurer), City Publishing SLC South; Mike Agrelius, Nothing Bundt Cakes; Mard Dominguez, Active Digital Marketing; Cassie Eisenberger, Pet Suites; Steve Frantz, First Utah Bank; Jen Gardner, Organize Joy; Catrina Holmes, Live Well Animal Hospital; Stephanie Isiko, CMIT Solutions; Shea Quintanna, America First Credit Union; Wanda Tolman, Canyon View Credit Union; and Elissa Tran, My UT Real Estate Group.
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
• The cost of divorce is trapping 183,247 Utahns in unhappy marriages, according to a survey of people in long-term relationships by Henderson & Henderson Attorneys at Law. Sixteen percent of married Utahns say they cannot afford to divorce. The national figure is 21 percent, or 27.6 million people. The highest percentage is in Mississippi, at 47 percent. Details are at https://hhlawsc.com/divorce-affordability-survey-2026/.
• Harmony in Provo has Utah’s “friendliest small-business staff,” according to a survey by direct business loan lender Advance Funds Network. It is ranked No. 94 nationally. It is followed by Burns Cowboy Shop in Park City (No. 128) and Deseret Book’s flagship store in Salt Lake City (No. 136). The top-ranked business in the U.S. is Matchbox Candle Co. in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Details are at https://advancefundsnetwork.com/survey-reveals-the-top-150-friendliest-small-businesses-in-the-us-2026/.
• Liberty Park in Salt Lake City is the top place in Utah for a “micro-escape,” according to a survey by A Mission for Michael that asked people to identify the urban parks, gardens, riverwalks and public green spaces that help them feel calm, grounded and able to switch off. Liberty Park was ranked No. 50 nationally. It is followed by No. 115 West Ogden Park in Ogden and No. 147 Kiwanis Park in Provo. The top-ranked location is Kanaha Beach Park in Kahului, Hawaii. Details are at https://amfmtreatment.com/blog/green-getaways/.
• Ogden, at No. 164 nationally, is the top Utah city for DIY outdoor weddings, according to a survey by Lawn Love. It considered average yard sizes; access to park space and beaches; climate access to wedding services like caterers and bridal shops; and local interest for outdoor, beachfront and backyard weddings. The lowest-ranked Utah location is No. 475 West Valley City. Salt Lake City is No. 281. The top-ranked location nationally is Santa Fe, New Mexico. Details are at https://lawnlove.com/blog/best-cities-outdoor-weddings/.
• Salt Lake City is ranked No. 10 on a list of “Best Capitals to Live In,” compiled by personal-finance company WalletHub. It compared all 50 state capitals across 48 key metrics, ranging from the cost of living to K-12 school-system quality to the number of attractions. The top-ranked capital is Austin, Texas. The lowest-ranked capital is Jackson, Mississippi. Details are at https://wallethub.com/edu/best-state-capitals/19030.
• Utah is ranked No. 2 on a list of states with the “least lonely seniors,” compiled by CareScout. It used six metrics of federal data from the states and the District of Columbia. The study indicates a record 26.9 million seniors are single; a record 8.7 million are depressed; and 41 percent are lonely, up from 32 percent in 2010. Utah is ranked No. 4 for depression (18.8 percent), No. 5 for regularly discussing issues with family and friends (68 percent), No. 13 for psychologists (15 per 10,000 population), No. 42 for self-reported loneliness (5.2 percent), No. 50 for living alone (35.4 percent) and No. 51 for being single (51 percent). The loneliest seniors are in Louisiana. The least-lonely are in Hawaii. Details are at https://www.carescout.com/resources/how-loneliness-is-impacting-older-adults-across-the-country.
• Utah’s Rocky Mountain accent is American’s No. 9 accent disappearing from everyday talk, according to a survey by word search tool The Word Finder. It surveyed 3,042 people, asking which accents or slang they use less, hear less or have stopped saying entirely. The top dialect Americans say they are using or hearing less is Appalachian. Details are at https://www.thewordfinder.com/accent-amnesia/.
GOVERNMENT
• MyUtah, a new state online portal at myutah.gov, has launched. It brings many of the most common state services into one site. Gov. Spencer Cox described it as “a practical upgrade that saves time, reduces confusion, and helps people trust what they are seeing online.” The portal is designed for on-the-go access and streamlines the steps people often take to find the right agency, the right page and the right form. The portal connects users to services while data remains in the originating state systems, rather than being centralized in a new database. Utah.gov averages more than 300,000 views per month, with more than 150,000 active users. Across state websites, Utah sees more than 12 million views per month and more than 2.8 million active users.
• A traveling, interactive installation appeared at Utah High School Activities Association basketball championships as part of the statewide CHAT campaign, an initiative led by the Utah Governor’s Office of Families in partnership with the Utah Department of Health and Human Services to strengthen family connection. The installation supported the CHAT campaign’s mission to strengthen youth mental health by encouraging positive childhood experiences and open communication at home. Designed to replicate a small living room, the installation at UHSAA basketball championships invited parents and kids to pause, sit down and have a meaningful conversation. The installation was in place for games at Utah Valley University, the University of Utah and Salt Lake Community College.
HEALTH CARE
• ARUP Laboratories, a Salt Lake City-based diagnostic medicine and nonprofit reference laboratory, has launched a new Innovation Central Laboratory to facilitate collaboration with pharmaceutical, biotechnology and other industry partners. The ICL will serve as an ecosystem for validating technologies and accelerating next-generation diagnostics from concept to commercialization. The lab provides an opportunity for biotechnology and pharmaceutical partners to collaborate with ARUP on early-stage exploration and refinement of novel diagnostic concepts outside of routine clinical workflows. ARUP offers a full suite of services and full life cycle management to help partners accelerate innovation and get products to market efficiently and effectively.
INTERNATIONAL
• A Germany/Switzerland trade mission being organized by World Trade Center Utah has new dates, April 13-22. It was originally scheduled for April 17-25. The trip cost is $4,000. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis through March 13. Details are available by contacting trademissions@wtcutah.com.
MANUFACTURING
• Innovative Labs, a Springville-based contract development and manufacturing organization for the health and wellness industry, has opened a new facility in the city. The company said the expansion significantly increases production capacity and introduces advanced automation to meet global demand for high-performance health and wellness products. The expansion includes expanded liquid manufacturing lines for high-absorption formats, new powder stick pack production to meet consumer demand for convenience, advanced R&D labs focused on flavor science and delivery systems, and streamlined operational efficiency to support high-volume distribution.
MILESTONES
• Utility Trailer Manufacturing Co. recently celebrated a production milestone, producing its 200,000th refrigerated trailer at its Clearfield manufacturing facility. Utility’s first Clearfield plant opened in 1965 and closed in 2001. A new larger facility adjacent to the area opened in January 2000.
PARTNERSHIPS
• Canary Speech, a Provo-based company focused on vocal biomarker technology, has announced its entry into the consumer health space through a partnership with JubileeTV, an app-to-TV caregiving system that supports families caring for aging loved ones. The collaboration aims to bring Canary Speech’s voice analysis into everyday at-home caregiving, giving families early insight into emotional, mental and cognitive wellness trends through natural conversation. Canary Speech analyzes acoustic and linguistic patterns from brief snippets of natural speech, generating simple, non-diagnostic scores related to wellness, mood, stress, energy and cognitive patterns. Integrated directly into JubileeTV’s video calls, the insights are generated quietly in the background during the conversations families already have. Canary Speech’s integration with JubileeTV focuses on trend awareness and early signals rather than diagnosis. Voice analysis occurs only during JubileeTV video calls when enabled. Insights are visible only to authorized family members within the JubileeTV app.
• Valinor Discovery, based in California, and Renew Biotechnologies, based in Pleasant Grove, have announced a strategic collaboration to generate the largest clinical multi-omics dataset to date for neurological disorders. Designed to improve the prediction of disease onset and therapeutic responses, the initiative will provide Valinor access to multimodal datasets derived from thousands of patients spanning Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and other neurological disorders to support large foundation model development. The collaboration combines Valinor’s expertise in machine learning with Renew’s clinical laboratory infrastructure and expertise in generating high-resolution multi-omics data from well-characterized patient samples. Under the collaboration, Renew will source clinical samples and apply its native-read sequencing workflows within a quality-controlled translational environment to generate genomic and epigenomic data for downstream modeling. Valinor will deploy its proprietary machine learning architectures to identify disease-relevant patterns and predictive signatures of therapeutic response from the longitudinal, multimodal data. The partnership aims to increase decision-making confidence, accelerate programs toward clinical milestones, and reduce R&D costs. Financial terms were not disclosed.
• Nearmap, a Salt Lake City-based property intelligence company, and New Light Technologies, a D.C.-based provider of emergency management and disaster response solutions, have announced an enterprise agreement supporting the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s geospatial disaster response operations. Together, Nearmap and New Light enable FEMA to rapidly capture, integrate and operationalize post-event aerial imagery to support response, recovery and coordination efforts following major disasters. The collaboration has supported FEMA’s geospatial response office across nine presidential disaster declarations, including hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires and floods. Nearmap imagery provides a consistent visual baseline before and after major natural events, helping FEMA and its partners better understand changing conditions across impacted communities. New Light ensures the imagery is efficiently accessed, integrated and applied across FEMA’s operational systems.
PHILANTHROPY
• The 2026 Special Olympics USA Games is joining forces with 50 Jersey Mike’s Subs locations in Utah for the 16th annual March “Month of Giving” campaign. During March, Jersey Mike’s customers will have the option to round up their purchase to the nearest dollar or make a donation when placing their order to help48 local Team Utah athletes and the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games, set for June 20-26 in locations across Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Nearly 3,000 athletes will compete in 16 sports, including athletics, gymnastics, swimming and basketball, with pickleball and cornhole making their debut. The Month of Giving campaign culminates with “Day of Giving” on March 25, when local Jersey Mike’s restaurants will give 100 percent of the day’s sales to the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games and the local state programs attending the USA Games. Jersey Mike’s hopes to exceed last year’s record-breaking national fundraising total of $30 million. Since Month of Giving began in 2011, Jersey Mike’s has raised more than $143 million for local charities.
RECOGNITIONS
• Zions Bancorporation NA, based in Salt Lake City, has been recognized by Coalition Greenwich as a 2026 Best Bank Award winner, receiving 15 Best Bank Awards for serving middle-market and small-business clients. Since the start of the awards in 2009, Zions is one of only four U.S. banks to have averaged 15 or more middle-market and small-business Coalition Greenwich Best Bank Awards annually and has received the second-highest number of awards in the middle-market category. These awards are based on approximately 25,000 market research interviews with businesses nationwide, evaluating more than 500 banks. This marks Zions’ 17th year of recognition by Coalition Greenwich, with 261 total awards earned to date. Zions received Best Bank awards in the following middle-market categories: trust, values long-term relationships, customer service, ease of doing business, advisory capabilities of relationship manager, satisfaction with relationship manager and satisfaction with relationship manager (West). Zions received Best Bank awards in the small-business categories for trust, values long-term relationships, likelihood to recommend, customer service, satisfaction with relationship manager, product capabilities in cash management, likelihood to recommend (West) and satisfaction with relationship manager (West).
• NetSTAR Global Inc., a Salt Lake City-based company focused on OEM web categorization and threat intelligence solutions, has been named a finalist in the Best Network Security & Fraud Prevention (Mobile Tech) category at the GSMA Global Mobile Awards. The GSMA awards recognize the most innovative and impactful technology solutions across the global mobile ecosystem. The Best Network Security & Fraud Prevention category honors technologies that protect mobile networks, reduce fraud exposure, and strengthen operator security infrastructure. NetSTAR was shortlisted for its inCompass platform, an OEM-grade URL and IP address categorization and filtering technology, and threat intelligence engine, deployed at scale by mobile operators, security vendors and network providers worldwide.